Author
Topic: My life As Anal as It Gets (Read 894 times)

I just got done figuring out all the calculations for pressures as they relate to pounds per square in so I can upscale to bigger molds and get the correct press. I did of course learn this from Wayne and I concure. I don't know if I would have figured this out on my own, maybe after the first cheese fell apart...who knows all I can say is thank god Wayne is using his brain. The pneumatic cylinders I use have different pressure variance, my 1 1/4 bore is 1.2 multiple of pressure, so if you have 20 PSI line pressure the actual force is 24 pounds of force. So I figured it out for all the different cylinders I have. I figured out the volume of curds before pressing and after pressing so I can calculate how much a new batch will take up if I up the gallonage. I also made a chart to show where each cheese can be aged without affecting other cheeses and so on.

The good news, Wayne, is that a Parmesan from 5 gallons of 2% milk is in pressed form 8" in diameter and 3" high, which is 150 cubic inches. That makes 30 cubic inches per gallon of milk. Now here's the good part the mold I want to use for the BIG Wheel will be 11-12" in diameter and 5" high which will be 16 gallons. So I won't have to go to 30 gallons, I can stay at 16-18. That's with 2% milk, so for a cheddar I will only need...crap as I was writing this I was doing the calculation from the volumes I have on the cheddars I've made and it's actually less cubic inches per gallon because cheddar is compressed so much more than Parmesan...so I'm not out of the woods yet, at least Parmesan is good to go, which I enjoy the most. I cook and I go through lots of Parmesan and it's dam expensive for the good stuff here, $21 a pound at mollie stones, $15 at trader joes, but I don't know if I like trader joes as much.

I could make a new mold that makes a cheese 9" in diameter and 6-7 inches high. Actually that's better so I can have different sizes for different cheeses.

I wonder what I could use to make the mold. HDPE, cutting board material, from tap plastics says it can be heat formed. Maybe I can form it and plastic weld the seam and then turn it on my lathe....sound like a pain.

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Life is like a box of chocolates sometimes too much rennet makes you kill people.